Encounters

‘We came to look at the house.’

‘Oh?’ He stopped, gazing down at the grass. ‘Interested in history, are you? It must have been lovely here, before they moved us in.’

Victoria smiled. ‘Your family have lived here for a long time, have they?’

‘My family?’ He looked at her in amusement. ‘No, my family don’t come from here.’ He stepped down onto the soft soil of the flower bed and picked a scarlet rose bud. ‘Here. For you. It goes with your dress.’ He held it out to her. As she took it their fingers touched and the electricity which passed between them left them both for a moment confused. She slipped it behind the pin of the brooch she was wearing.

‘Thank you.’

He was frowning. ‘You’re wearing a wedding ring.’

She looked down at her hand, startled. ‘Yes.’ She bit her lip. ‘My husband is here. He was looking round upstairs. I ought to go and join him, really.’ She hesitated. She couldn’t bear the anguish in his eyes. ‘He was injured too – in the Falklands. He’s out of the army now.’ There was another long silence. ‘I can’t remember your name,’ she said at last.

‘It’s Stephen.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly, ‘Stephen Cheney.’

The name meant nothing to her. Nothing.

‘May I go and bring Robert to meet you?’ she asked after a moment.

He was staring at her again, leaning heavily on his stick, his eyes intense. The silence between them was tangible. It stretched out agonizingly. Then at last he spoke. ‘You and I were lovers once,’ he whispered, ‘in a land, long ago.’

She went cold.

For a moment they were both silent, stunned by what he had said, then he laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. It’s a quotation. At least, I think it is. If not it ought to be. Perhaps I’ll write it myself. Yes, go and fetch your husband. I’d like to meet him.’

Victoria turned and walked slowly back across the grass towards the door into the house. She stopped as she put her hand on the handle and turned to look back over her shoulder. He was standing watching her. Jauntily he raised his stick in salute.

She let herself into the cold corridor with a shiver and ran to the stairs. ‘Robert? Are you up there?’

‘Here. Come and see this.’ His voice was distant. ‘This place is really weird,’ he went on as she found him in the end room. ‘Look at these –’ He broke off. ‘Victoria, darling, what is it?’

For a fraction of a second she hesitated, then she threw herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Robert!’ She buried her face in his shirt, clinging to him. ‘Robert. Where have you been?’

‘Only up here.’ He steadied himself with difficulty and pushed her gently away from him. ‘Victoria, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I was suddenly so afraid I was going to lose you.’ She could feel it again; the terror; the pain; the dread. It spun around them in the air.

He laughed. ‘No such luck, Mrs Holland. You’re stuck with me. How was the garden?’

‘It’s beautiful.’ She had to be outside again. She couldn’t bear to be inside another minute. ‘You must come down and see it. I met one of Lady Penelope’s guests. He said he’d like to meet you.’ She knew she was gabbling.

‘I thought what’s-his-name said the house was empty.’

‘He obviously didn’t realize. It doesn’t matter.’ She glanced round again, at the long empty corridor and the silent rooms leading off it and she closed her eyes, trying to stave off the overpowering feeling of unhappiness which swept around her. ‘I saw Stephen’s nurse up here from the garden. Did you meet her?’ The air was stuffy; no windows were open. There was no music. The upper floor echoed with emptiness.

‘A nurse?’ He looked puzzled. ‘No, there’s been no one up here. No one at all.’

They both glanced over their shoulders.

‘That’s strange.’ She bit her lip, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘When I was out there, I could hear music. The windows were open …’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘You must have been looking at another part of the house. Come on, I’ve seen enough.’

‘We’re not going to buy it, are we?’ Suddenly she minded terribly. Irrationally, she wanted the house. She wanted it as she had never wanted anything before.

He shook his head. ‘It needs too much money spending on it, I’m afraid and it is far too large for us, you must see that. Sad, though. It’s a lovely place.’

She bit her lip. ‘I want to live here, Robert. I must live here.’

He stared at her and something in her eyes alarmed him. He was swamped by a sudden sense of foreboding; he could feel the cold coming at him from the walls, threatening to overpower him. Somehow he forced himself to smile; somehow he kept his voice calm. ‘Well, let’s see the rest of the place, then we can talk about it some more.’

At the foot of the stairs she put her hand on the door handle. ‘Come and see the gardens. They’re so lovely.’ Her fear had subsided as quickly as it had come. It had been an irrational, silly moment. She pushed at the door and frowned, rattling the handle. It seemed to have locked itself.

‘Here. Let me.’ Robert shook it hard. ‘You are sure it was unlocked?’

‘Of course I’m sure. It must have latched.’ He could hear the rising panic in her voice again.

‘Never mind, Victoria darling, it doesn’t matter.’ He put his arm round her, pulling her to him. ‘We can walk round the outside before we go.’

Victoria moved away sharply from his strangely alien embrace and with a little sob she turned and ran down the passage.

Robert stared after her in astonishment and fear, then slowly he followed her.

William was waiting for them in the main entrance hall. ‘Ready to go upstairs?’ He glanced at them surreptitiously. They both looked agitated; uneasy.

‘Why not?’ Robert followed him towards the staircase.

‘What did you think of the west wing?’

‘Not a lot,’ Robert smiled tightly. ‘What on earth happened to it?’

‘The house was used as a nursing home during the first war and they used that wing for the operating theatre and wards for the worst injured men.’ William glanced at Victoria who had gone white. ‘When the family moved back in about 1920 they left it as it was. Just closed the door and pretended it wasn’t there until they forgot about it. And I think each successive generation has done the same since. Did you see the stretcher poles? They always give me the creeps.’

‘So that’s what they were.’ Robert shuddered. ‘Something I know a bit about.’

‘It’s an unhappy place,’ Victoria put in quietly.

William nodded. ‘I suspect a lot of young men died here. Luckily the rest of the house seems unaffected. I wouldn’t let it worry you.’ He didn’t give them time to react. Turning, he led the way up the broad unlit sweep of stairs. Halfway up he stopped. ‘Mrs Holland?’

Victoria was standing where they had left her. Her face was drained of colour.

‘The nurse. Stephen’s nurse. She was wearing some sort of big white head dress …’

‘No, Victoria.’ Robert limped back down the stairs towards her. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Just stop it. What you saw was a real nurse. A modern nurse. She probably saw me in the distance and decided to go back downstairs.’

William was frowning at them from the staircase. He felt a shiver touch his spine. What had she seen? One of his colleagues from the firm had seen something when she had stayed to lock up after showing some people around a few days before. That was why she had refused to come this morning. ‘You can deal with that place,’ she had said. ‘I’m not going there again!’

He glanced at Victoria. ‘What happened?’ he asked cautiously.